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Daidoji Kokoro
Daidoji Kokoro was a warrior of the Crane Clan, who married for love and became rōnin. Rōnin In the fifth century, in defiance of the paths set before them by their families and clans, the healer Asahina Takuya and the warrior Daidoji Kokoro married beneath an autumn cherry tree—an auspicious symbol of their unlikely bond. As the ceremony concluded, a vision appeared to the pair: an unwinding cord, held together by the last thread. Kokoro and Takuya came to interpret it as a sign that they were bound by destiny. Knowing they could not return to their old lives, the couple became rōnin, journeying from town to town and plying their skills to get by and evading those sent by their families to return them to their duty. But the vision did not fade for Takuya and Kokoro, and they began to see the cord as it wove through the hearts of all people they passed. The pair found that a village's fortunes might be preserved through their intervention—or collapse through their inability to prevent certain matches and the alliances that resulted. They were hounded by pursuers seeking the reward placed upon them by their families. Kokoro grew skilled in the arts of stealth to avoid notice and win against overwhelming odds. Takuya refined his methods of healing, learning to use the thread binding them to align his ki to her own and bear some portion of her suffering. Courts of Stone, p. 79 Aokami Forest After a particularly harrowing battle with their pursuers that endangered the lives of everyone in the inn where they had stayed, the pair left civilization entirely, moving to the Aokami Forest. There Kokoro and Takuya discovered another autumn cherry tree, where Musubi, the Fortune of bonds, revealed themself to them in full. As the Fortune had preserved the couple, they would preserve the people of the Empire—subtly, and ever in the name of balance. Kokoro planted her spear, signifying that this would be their new home, and Takuya knelt, pledging his service to the spirit that had guided their love throughout many trials. Quietly, they took others into their fold. Takuya taught the Musubu technique, while Kokoro trained warriors to protect the fledgling group. A master of sōjutsu, years on the run had taught her to be cunning and cautious while training in the wilds had taught her to mirror the balance of the natural world around her. As she observed the deer, she created an acrobatic new style of combat with a unique weapon, the tsuno-yari. The grace of Kokoro's students eventually earned them the name Speardancers. Courts of Stone, pp. 79-81 Legacy Protected by the Speardancers, the mystics trained by Takuya in the art of Musubu ventured out into the Empire as mediators, under the care of their protectors. They felled assassins, extinguished disputes, and possessed the uncanny ability to know a person's soul, founding the role of traveling Matchmakers, facilitating not just marriages, but adoptions, business partnerships, and minor political alliances. Soon they caught the eye of the Emperor, and in the year 618 the Deer Clan was founded. An ancient spear still stood at the sacred tree of the Fortune Musubi in Kyūden Shika. Kokoro was the first of the Speardancers of the Shika family, while Takuya began the tradition of the Shika Matchmakers, who were shugenja as well. Courts of Stone, pp. 79-82 Category:Crane Clan Members (TCG) Category:Rōnin